


Adrift! A little boat adrift!

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, American Civil War, Doctors & Physicians, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Period-Typical Racism, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-03 01:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10956441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: He'd gotten to her in time. But there hadn't been enough to make a plan and it was sorely needed.





	Adrift! A little boat adrift!

“Bring her back home,” Samuel had said, leaving off any appellations that would suggest politeness or a request. It was an order and Jed knew Samuel would have liked to have been able to carry it out himself, but the risk was too great, so he had waited for Jed to return from the fool’s errand McBurney had engineered, aware that they both might be too late. But there had been enough time, since Anne had revealed McBurney’s plan and Jed had driven the horses to a lather, time enough for Samuel to issue his directive and for Jed to arrive on the dock where Mary lay, her fever spiking and her beautiful dark eyes confused. She had reached for his face, her hand trembling, and when he’d caught it in his own, she had murmured his name _Jedediah_ but it was a question and not a confirmation. The book Anne found was heavy in his pocket, slapping against his thigh as he knelt beside Mary on the stretcher they’d carried her on, through the streets and in a rude wagon; she would have whispered bits of the Tennyson to herself between coughing spasms, fretful when she could not recall a word, unable to wipe the tears from her cheeks. 

The woman Miss Dix had sent to be Mary’s escort had looked both stern and helpless. Jed had seen that she knew how ill Mary was and how cruel her task would be but without his intervention, there was nothing she could do but take Mary ever closer to her grave. Her protestations were made without any vigor and he heard the relief in her voice when she acquiesced to his curt commands. She had not blushed or lowered her eyes when he picked up Mary in his arms, wrapped in the paisley shawl they’d covered her with, the thinnest veil of propriety. He had been distracted almost immediately by how light Mary was, how the illness had wasted her strength except for her soul’s fortitude. It had taken McBurney’s cruel expulsion into the lonely night to weaken her spirit, the explanation for how readily she laid her head against his chest, the sigh she’d given when he tightened his hold on her. He had bitten back the words that had no place on a steamship dock, _oh my dearest girl, oh sweetheart, I’ve got you, just a little while, stay with me, darling, darling_ , and tried to consider what to do. Where to go, where he might take her and care for her—he could not solve it and he must. She shivered in his arms and she burned, moaning softly when he shifted her, a sound that could break him.

Samuel had demanded he bring her home, but where was that now? Not Mansion House, where McBurney remained a grave danger to her, not the hotel Hale frequented when Anne refused him her bed and a whore obliged. He could not ask Emma’s family to take in a delirious Yankee nurse and he would not risk the schism their refusal might create, between Emma and her parents or Emma and the chaplain. If he had had more time, he would have taken rooms in a boarding house run by a respectable widow or made arrangements with the wife of the garrison’s commanding officer, a Vermonter who would have taken pity on her ill countrywoman. Jed wished he had not given up the house he had leased for Eliza, that it stood empty and waiting for them, with rooms enough for a contraband servant to sleep or one of the Quaker women living just outside of the town who might be induced to care for a suffering soul. There would be a roof over their heads and a bed to lay Mary in, a lamp to light and a chair to draw up next to the bed, where he could sit facing her and watch over her until dawn broke. He felt how it taxed her to breathe and when she opened them, her dark eyes were full of pain; he had no time to waste and no solution.

Dorothea Dix’s woman had helped him get a carriage so he didn’t have to carry Mary through the dusty streets but when the driver had asked him the destination, he had not the faintest idea. _Want Jed, get him for me, please, please_ Mary murmured with her cheek pressed against his beating heart and Jed heard himself say “Mansion House” before the horses’ hooves and Mary’s catarrh filled his ears. When it stopped in front of the steps, he knew he could not carry her through the door and expect her to live so he returned to where he had started.

“Mr. Diggs? Have you seen him?” he asked Charlotte Jenkins, who evidently slept lightly and in her serviceable dress and apron. She had not even rubbed her eyes or yawned, just regarded him steadily, how he stood with little grace, Mary clutched in his arms, the hem of the paisley shawl with its silken fringe trailing in the dirt.

“He got called to the ward. Dr. Hale…needed his assistance. A hemorrhage, I think,” Charlotte answered. Jed felt the last certainty slip away, the confidence he’d had in Samuel solving the problem he could not, Samuel still waiting for Mary’s return as Mary had once waited for his.

“Oh,” Jed said, the exhalation what passed for a word, the beginning of a sentence he had no idea how to finish.

“She needs to rest. In a proper bed,” Charlotte said, not unkindly.

“I know. But I don’t, I don’t know where to take her, there’s nowhere to go,” Jed replied, pausing between the phrases, exhausted by his fear, wanting to put Mary in his own bed and knowing McBurney would only expel her again, even more harshly.

“She could stay here,” Charlotte offered.

“The contraband camp?” Jed said.

“We have beds and she hasn’t got a place to lay her head. It’s the Christian thing to do,” Charlotte said evenly. “But perhaps it’s not good enough.”

“No. No, wait. Please,” Jed began. It was the please that stopped Charlotte from turning away, he knew that though it seemed it was all he knew.

“You would do that for her? Take her in, nurse her?” he asked.

“She’s the reason I’m here. She worked among our people and she did what she was told. Nurse Mary didn’t stand on ceremony. I couldn’t do less for her than she would, I shouldn’t want to,” Charlotte explained. “But she’d be among black folks, the contraband. Perhaps you don’t want that for her, a white lady.”

Jed had never known a black woman to speak to him so. Yet Charlotte’s tone recalled to him how he’d first felt when Mary arrived, when she spoke her mind without apology, listened to him and expected him to listen to her in return. There was not more time to consider anything but Mary’s health, Mary’s life and how Charlotte was willing to try and save it.

“I want her to live. That’s all I want,” he said.

“Here then, lay her down,” Charlotte gestured to a bed close by, with clean, worn linens. An grizzled old man slept, snoring, in the bed next to it, a younger woman dozed restlessly on the other side. Jed’s arms felt empty without Mary but his hands flew to her face, to check her fever, her wrist to assess her pulse. Charlotte let him, then moved to loosen the collar of Mary’s nightdress, adjust a fold of the shawl, humming a little under her breath.

“She won’t like it, when she wakes,” Jed said. When and not if, he had chosen the words with confidence, a sense of surety restored with Charlotte’s quiet competence, the way Mary had turned her face into the pillow, the lantern-light faintly golden.

“No?” Charlotte replied, ready to argue.

“Forgive me, I’m tired. I’m usually better at expressing myself. She won’t like taking the bed from one of the contraband, she will feel she doesn’t deserve it, but what else can I do?” Jed answered, pinching the bridge of his nose. He carried the weight of the day in his neck, his shoulders, a spike behind his eye that meant a migraine. The relief of finding a safe place for Mary allowed the other strains to be felt, other worries crowding in.

“Never you mind that. Woman’s allowed to be silly, sick woman more than most. As if I’d let you take her somewhere else. She’ll stay here with us until you find something better than an open-air camp,” Charlotte said. 

“Major McBurney won’t give you any trouble over this, will he? She won’t accept that and I can’t see how to make her,” Jed asked. He knew he should be concerned for the safety of the contraband facing McBurney’s volatile wrath, but tonight, only Mary occupied his thoughts.

“I don’t think so. He rarely leaves the hospital and he wouldn’t want to come here. Too much sickness, too much dirt, Samuel says. You might ask that foreign nurse to keep him occupied for a few days, to be safe though,” Charlotte said. “And you might fetch us a little more medicine, spend a little longer on your rounds while she’s here, so you know she’s getting the proper treatment.”

“I will. And when I’ve found her somewhere else, I’ll still come, as much as I can. I give you my word on that, Miss Jenkins,” Jed promised. Charlotte nodded at him and gave him the first smile he’d ever seen in her eyes as well as her lips.

“Why don’t you sit a spell with her? Samuel should be back within the hour, God-willing, and you can discuss her treatment with him,” Charlotte suggested. There was not the space for a chair but there was enough room to sit beside Mary on the thin mattress and hold her hand, watch her breathe more easily. They were alone among the sleeping patients, Charlotte retreating to the alcove she used; when Mary opened her eyes, he did not hesitate to reassure her _Hush, dearest, you’re safe, you’re home_ and he knew he was telling the truth.

**Author's Note:**

> This started with the idea of Samuel telling Jed what to do, what we all wanted Jed to do, which was to rescue Mary instead of letting his true love float away on a steamship into the night with a promise he only sort-of kept ("I'll be there soon," yeah right, Jed!). Here, I have repaired that rent in the universe and given more time to Charlotte and Jed to chat, which is always an endeavor to write.
> 
> The title is from Emily Dickinson.


End file.
